


Assessment

by uminoko



Category: Marvel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:47:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uminoko/pseuds/uminoko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a mix of MCU and 616</p>
            </blockquote>





	Assessment

Howard Stark was an easy target. Trusting. Self-absorbed. For all his scotch-soaked charm, useless with women in general, and his wife in particular.

Watching them together was heartbreaking—no, it would be heartbreaking, if Romanoff didn’t have to work. Maria Stark looked like she belongs in a silent movie from the twenties, all eyes and a moody mouth, utterly baffling to her husband, who couldn’t take her apart, so he didn’t know what to do. So he drank, and he thought, and the more he thought, the drunker he got. Stark couldn’t figure her out, but he was hopelessly in love with her and very afraid, so he would keep keep trying until something broke. They would kill each other one day, that much was obvious.

Easy target.

***

Vanko was returned into the loving hands of the Union, as per mission; Stark Industries continued to be monitored. The empire had an heir now, a dark-eyed boy who didn’t particularly look like anyone yet. Stark had rather glaring holes in security when it came to his son, according to Romanoff’s assessment—it was as though Howard couldn’t quite believe that this small, underdeveloped creature was real. Maria Stark, however, rarely lets him out of her sight, as if the child lends her own being some measure of reality.

***

The boy grows. He has his mother’s giant eyes and his father’s unruly hair—back before it took a turn for the receding. The Starks have a kidnapping scare, security gets tightened considerably, and the child rarely sees the light of day. He is certainly not allowed to ride roller coasters.

***

Boarding school. An unusual choice, considering the ease of infiltration, but when Romanoff looks into it, the school is attended by children of royalty, presidents, and top military officials (Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross), and it is state of the art. The only way to take out the targets is an aerial strike, of which Romanoff makes a note to her superiors.

When she checks out the grounds, the boy notices her and waves, then elbows an ambassador’s son, pointing. Makes excited gestures not unusual for a boy of that age—he talks with his hands a lot, as though the amount of ideas in his head cannot be contained by words only. Romanoff barely smiles at him, even though he can’t see it, then casually disappears. The little bastard is way too smart.

***

He smiles when he’s in trouble, like his mother does—a mirthless smile. He pretends a lot. Seventeen, MIT. She could have killed him ten times over every day; actually, he very nearly kills himself ten times a day: workshop explosions, 200-miles-an-hour motorcycle rides, the raging drinking problem. He’s rarely alone, though. There is always another boy pulling his ass out of the fire, sometimes literally. Romanoff submits a workup on James Rhodes, but her primary missions make her association with Stark Industries more and more tenuous. Vanko’s son is imprisoned for the idiotic idea that he can avoid giving the proper channels the cut from his weapons sales. For being geniuses, these people can barely function in civilized society.

***

Howard Stark’s car explodes around the same time that the Red Room does. It’s not Romanoff’s work, at least she doesn’t think it is. Everything is chaos now, all memories muddled.

***

Natasha steps into the ring, and knows this man to the bottom of his feet. ‘Huh?’ he says, because he can hear her thinking something, but damned if he knows what it is.

***

She never tells anyone the whole story, not even at the funeral.


End file.
